


Rescue Me

by ladygray99



Series: Rescue Me [1]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bathing/Washing, Community: numb3rs100, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Desert, Drabble, Drabble Sequence, Drug Addiction, M/M, Post-Series, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-14
Updated: 2011-07-12
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:54:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygray99/pseuds/ladygray99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don’s happy ever after didn’t turn up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rescue Me (#183 Rescue)

**Author's Note:**

> So I’ve had this plan for this BurntOut!Don/Larry story floating around my head for a while now. It’s in bits and pieces but it has mostly come together. Feedback Please.

Don opened his eyes. The room was spinning. The room always seemed to be spinning these days, since Robin left, since the bullet shattered his knee, since they took his team, since his fight with Charlie, since he learned how to mix Vicodin and tequila and still do paperwork then limp home on Friday nights and not move until Monday.

Don wasn't sure what day it was. Some part of him hoped it was still the weekend but mostly he didn’t care, he just knew he didn't feel well. He recognized the figure standing over him.

“Larry?”

Larry's smile was soft and sad. “Hello Donald.”

“I don't feel well.”

Larry knelt down. Don realized he was on the floor. “I know.” Don closed his eyes again. He felt Larry's hand on his head then his cheek. It was dry and cool. It was miles away from his own skin hot, dirty and sticky. “I think you need a change in scenery.”

“I can't leave.”

“You already have. You just left your body here.” Don blinked. “I still have a place in the desert. It's empty and clean. No pills, no alcohol, no demands from others. It's a safe place for shifting your mind from one state to another.”

“Why?”

“Because I am worried about you and someone obviously needs to be.”

Don tried to think about that, think about the idea that anyone was worried about him. It was hard to think about anything these days. He tried to push himself up but his knee throbbed and his head spun. He scrabbled for the cane that was usually in reach.

Instead Larry's arms were around him helping him sit up. They were stronger than Don expected and warm.

When the nausea passed Don looked at Larry's kind blue eyes. “Please.”


	2. A Hundred Billion Stars (#288 Dark)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don awakes in total darkness.

Don can't tell if he's awake. He touches his eyes to see if they're open. The dark is as enveloping as the silence. For a moment he wonders if he's dead.

Then the pain starts and he knows it's real. It starts at his knee and crawls up his leg. A second pain blooms in his stomach. He feels like he's being turned inside out. Then his head begins to throb.

He fumbles for the bottle of pills which should be by his bed, except he's not in his bed. He rolls to a rough wood floor his stomach cramping and his eyes desperately seeking any sliver of light.

Suddenly there are hands on his body. He doesn't fight, he's too busy fighting the pain. The hands lead him through the dark until a door is opened. On the other side is not proper light but stars. A hundred billion of them filling the sky, outlining empty hills.

Don doesn't take time to appreciate them. Instead he falls again, this time onto soft dusty earth, and his stomach finishes turning on itself and each movement of his body comes with bright blinding pain and soon Don is praying for darkness.


	3. Waking Up (#289 Bed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don wakes in a bed that isn't his.

Don opened his eyes to soft predawn light in a bed that wasn't his own. It was narrow and he could feel wood slats under a thin mattress, but the pillow under his head was soft and the quilt spread across him was bright.

A door opened and Larry came in. Don tried to push himself up but his body objected and he cried out. Larry held a glass of water to his lips without a word. Don drank deep then closed his eyes as Larry tucked the blankets back in tight and told Don to go back to sleep.


	4. Little Worries (#292 Insomnia)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don's head is clear and now he can't sleep.

Don was desperate for sleep. He'd spent the last several days doing almost nothing but sleeping, only interrupted by the occasional need to be violently ill. Now sleep was eluding him. He knew a beer would help, or better yet a couple of pain pills but Larry was good to his word and his little desert hide-a-way was void of such toxins.

Don now found his head clear for the first time in months. Clear and awake and panicking over little things like his job and his apartment. He had no clear memory of leaving LA so he was pretty sure he didn't put in a leave request.

He chuckled a little to himself. If Larry didn't leave a note then no one would know where he was. He might now be a missing person. He tried to remember what kind of math Charlie did for that kind of thing but his stomach turned sour. Charlie hadn't spoken directly too him in months. Don wondered how long it would take anyone to notice he was missing. He wondered if they had noticed at all.

He listened to Larry breathing softly from the room's other bed and desperately prayed for sleep.


	5. Bath Time (#223 Stand)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don really needs to get clean.

Don stood naked in the warm desert air. He leaned heavily on his cane but at least he was on his own two feet which was more than he'd done in some time.

He looked down at himself. He'd become scrawny. Those few extra pounds were long gone but so was any hint of muscle he once had.

He took a breath as warm water was ladled over his head and down his back. He knew he needed something more than a sponge bath but was too weak to stand and wash himself at the same time. Just the act of undressing himself had left his heart pounding.

Larry took a soft cloth to his body. Don was long past feeling any embarrassment around Larry. Instead he watched the water run down his body in thin rivulets. It ran over the scar tissue that enveloped his knee and collected in a shallow basin under his feet.

Larry poured another cup of precious water over his head. Warmed on a small gas stove, Don wasn't sure where the water came from but knew there was never much and what was pooling under his feet would water Larry's small garden in the morning.


	6. Raising Water (#224 Walk)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyday Larry takes a walk and returns with water.

Every day Larry took a walk with two large empty buckets and he returned from that walk with water. When Don could stand on his feet for an hour he asked to join Larry.

The walk wasn't far, just over the hill from Larry's little homestead. Don got maybe a hundred yards before his knee began to scream in agony. It took another week before he tired again.

The second time Don made it up the hill almost blind with pain. The thought of the return trip nearly drove him to tears.

Three days later Don made it to a small hole in the ground with a pipe sticking out. Larry turned a handle at the top of the pipe and water poured out into a bucket.

Don tried to catch his breath while leaning heavily on his cane. “I think Charlie built one of those when we were kids.”

“The Archimedean screw is still a highly efficient way of moving water.” The second bucket filled.

Larry attached the buckets to a yoke and hoisted them across his shoulders. “Can you manage the walk back?” He asked.

Don stared at Larry bowed under the water. “I think I can manage.”


	7. Tortillas, Tomatoes, Honey and Jam (#234 Chew)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don thought he'd lost his appetite.

Don thought he'd lost his appetite. It had been months since he'd taken a meal for any other reason than survival. When he'd finished shaking the alcohol and painkillers out of his system he found that it was his sense of taste that had been missing.

Larry's meals were not grand and probably not what a doctor would recommend to help get him back into shape but Don was finding joy in every bite. Breakfast was oatmeal with a little honey and a dollop of jam. The jam tasted like fruit and the honey like flowers.

For lunch and dinner it was beans and squash and thick skinned purple tomatoes from Larry's small garden. From some distant neighbor that Don never saw Larry got corn tortillas the size of his palm and cheese so fresh it still tasted like milk.

Don chewed every bite slowly taking the time to appreciate the sugar sweetness of tomatoes ripened under the desert sun. Too many meals over the years had been bolted between cases. There were no cases now. No ringing phones or paperwork or screaming victims. Now all Don had to do was exist in each moment and enjoy what it brought.


	8. Desert Air (#321 Desert)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The air and Don both feel more alive.

Don once chased bad men through the desert, but like so much those memories had become hazy. He mostly remembers the smell of the truck filled with rancid burgers and fries; the smell of his own flesh and Billy’s that had gone too long without a shower.

Things were different now, away from the stench of city smog Don can smell the desert.

Tiny white flowers clinging to dusty shrubs make the air sweet. Where precious water spills the ground smells alive. And even when the dry wind blows the air tastes clean.

With each breath Don feels more alive.


	9. Carrying Water (#155 Therapy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don knows he needs to get stronger.

Don found a small bucket hardly bigger than what a child would take to the beach. Every day he followed Larry over the hill for water. When they returned he would be exhausted and in pain but he knew he needed to get stronger.

He filled the bucket with a single turn of the screw. It couldn't have weighed much but to Don's withered arms it felt like liquid lead.

He stumbled along behind Larry, water sloshing to the dry earth, exhaustion quickly creeping in.

When they got home Don added his water to Larry's and felt a little pride.


	10. Ceremonial Cleansing (#215 Ceremony)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting clean is still important.

Don was strong enough to wash himself, and had been for some time. Still, it had taken on an air of ceremony, Larry carefully washing him at the end of each day. Don would lower his head and let his mind drift as the thin trickles of warm water were chased by the soft, wet, cloth.

Some evenings he'd even find his body reacting to the tender care. That was something else the booze and pills had destroyed for too long, but Don was beyond being embarrassed even by that. With Larry it was safe to simply let things happen.


	11. A Brother (#251 Speak)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie returns and needs Don.

Don was carefully watering the garden when he heard a raised voice. He recognized it and his stomach tightened. Larry was visiting the neighbors.

“Don!”

Don didn't look up from his work. “Hello Charlie,” he said quietly.

“Hello? Can you look at me? Do you know how many times I've been out here to see you?” Don knew and knew Larry kept sending him away. “I mean I'm sure you're still pissed at me but you're also technically still a missing person.”

Don chuckled.

“That's not funny.”

“It kind of is.”

Charlie pulled the watering can from his hands. “What the hell are you doing out here, Don? I'm sorry about all the other bullshit but speak to me, please.”

“I wasn't feeling well. Larry brought me here to get better.”

“Not feeling well?”

“I'm not taking any pills Charlie. My knee hurts but no pills, no alcohol. I walk to the spring in the morning. I carry water back. Not as much as Larry does but some. I help with the garden. I sweep out the house. In the evening Larry reads to me.”

Charlie looked at him like he'd just sprouted a second head. “Is this a twelve step thing?”

“No.” Don took back the watering can and gently watered the base of the squash plant.

“Are you coming back anytime soon?” Don just shrugged. He didn't think about the future these days. “Okay. You have seven months, maximum.” Don looked up. “Amita's pregnant and whatever problems we may have had don't matter. My child is going to need his uncle to show him how to do things like throw baseballs and work with tools 'cause god knows I won't be able to manage it.”

“A baby?” Don's mind rushed into the future.

“Don, I need my brother.”


	12. House Plants and Squash Plants (#268 Sweep)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Larry has a question for Don.

When Larry returned Don was sweeping, chasing the dust from between the rough floorboards with the same focus he once chased criminals through the streets of LA.

“Charlie was here,” he said not looking up from his sweeping.

“I'm sorry.”

“Amita's pregnant. Two months in. Charlie wants me to come home.”

Larry reached out and took Don's hands halting the almost brutal scraping of bristles against wood. “Do you want to return to LA, Donald?”

Don thought about his apartment without even a house plant to miss him. He thought about the squash plants. He thought about carrying water.

“No.”


	13. Bedtime Stories (#240 Shock)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don gets bedtime stories. Sort of.

It had been a long time since Don had been read bedtime stories, and Feynman's _Lectures on Physics_ might not really qualify, but every night by the light of an old hurricane lamp Larry read.

Don sat next to him to look at the diagrams and too his own shock and surprise found himself beginning to understand them.

On nights when he was too restless to sleep Larry would take him outside, lay down beside him on a blanket and teach him to see the colors in stars that had always been white, while the coyotes howled in the hills.


	14. Cold Desert Nights (#286 Change)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don starts to make little plans.

Don was aware that the nights were turning cold. The last of the beans and tomatoes were picked from the garden. Still Larry lay beside him in the night reciting the names of a thousand stars to him.

A meteor streaked by and Larry fell silent.

“I'm not going back to the Bureau,” Don said. The question of the future had been on his mind and floating between them. “I don't think they'd take me back anyway. For all I know I'm still missing.”

“Do you have an idea for a destination other than the Bureau?” Larry asked carefully.

Don did but it had taken weeks of thought to come to it and he still wasn't entirely sure. “Yeah. I think, maybe, I should go back to school.”

“Finish your law degree?”

“No.” Don couldn't think of anything worse. “I've changed. I'm not that guy anymore.”

“What do you intend to study?”

Don let his eyes settle on a tiny pinprick smudge in the night sky that Larry told him was a vast nebula birthing new suns. He raised a hand to it. “I'm not exactly sure but I think maybe all that sky is a good place to start.”


End file.
